Thoughts of Stevenson’s UN Deputy Charles Yost

Abstract

“It was of Eleanor [Roosevelt] that Adlai Stevenson said:’ she would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.’ They were a pair. One can no more write a thumbnail sketch of either of them than one can describe a smile or the touch of a hand. No one is perfect, but they came closer, without trying, to ‘loving thy neighbor as thyself’ than most people do, trying hard. Have you seen that photo of their profiles together, serene, simple, and human? They were both great and very simple—a rare, refreshing combination. … I think I am better for having worked with Adlai for four years. At least I should be.”¹

Charles W. Yost had a long global career in the U.S. Foreign Service and key positions with the State Department beginning in 1930 in Alexandria, Egypt. From 1961 to 66, he served as Ambassador Adlai Stevenson’s diplomatic deputy at the UN. From 1971, when he left his post as U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, to the time of his death in 1981, he continued to be active in matters of foreign policy as President of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, President Johnson’s envoy to the Middle East, 1967, Special Advisor to the Aspen Institute, a member of the Woodcock delegation to Vietnam, and Co-Chairman of Americans for SALT. His wife, daughter, and two sons traveled and resided with him during his various government assignments. His books include: The Conduct and Misconduct of Foreign Affairs (Random House, New York, 1972) and History & Memory (W. W. Norton, New York, 1980).

Ambassador Yost’s daughter, Felicity O. Yost, has served in the UN Secretariat’s Office of Public Information since 1973, during which she was a UN electoral observer in Namibia (1989), Haiti (1990), Angola (1992), El Salvador (1994), and Mozambique (1994). Ms. Yost was co-author of a United Nations Study Group Report, Suggestions for Personnel Reform, sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and illustrator and designer of the first United Nations children’s book, Marie in the Shadow of the Lion. She is currently writing a biography of her parents, Charles and Irena Yost.

Charles W. Yost’s daughter, a long-time member of the UN Secretariat.